Father Al, founder of Flight 93 chapel, dies

February 15, 2013|VICKI ROCK | Daily American Staff Writer

Bishop Alphonse Mascherino, founder of the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel, died Friday at Somerset In Touch Hospice House. He was 69.

Mascherino said his final Mass at the chapel on Jan. 20. His final service marked his resignation as director of the chapel that he founded to honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93, which crashed a short distance away on Sept. 11, 2001.

Born in Downingtown, Chester County, one of 11 children to Dominick and Emily Mascherino, Father Al, as he was commonly known, wanted to be a priest as a child. He was ordained in 1976 by Altoona-Johnstown Diocese Bishop James Hogan. He was pastor of St. Michael Church in West Salisbury when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Soon after Flight 93 crashed, Mascherino was driving past the former Mizpah Lutheran Church, which was then an unused seed warehouse. It is a small white building along Stutzmantown Road. Mascherino asked the bank about buying the building, but someone had already put a down payment on it. Not long after that, the bank contacted him and said the purchaser backed out. He had only $300 for a down payment, which wasn't enough. Mascherino sold his coin collection and other antiques and got a personal loan to buy the building in 2002.

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He and Bishop Joseph Adamec had a disagreement and Mascherino became a bishop with the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, an unrecognized offshoot of the Catholic Church. Mascherino was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church in 2007.

Over the years the chapel has become a regular second stop for many of the visitors who go to the Flight 93 National Memorial. When Mascherino, who had cancer of the esophagus, vocal cords and kidneys, became too ill to operate the chapel, he signed it over to Archbishop Ramzi Musallam, Catholic Church of the East, on Jan. 24, 2013. Tony DeGol, secretary for communications for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, saidBishop Mark Bartchak has been involved in conversations concerning his reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.

Friends spoke warmly about their relationship with Mascherino.

Don and Kay Kemp, Salisbury, have been friends with Mascherino for 35 years dating back to when he was pastor of St. Michael Church and Kay managed the local grocery store. Mascherino helped out at their antique store, Somerset Galleries, before he moved to California. He later returned.

"He was drawn to the chapel from the first time he saw it," Kay Kemp said in a telephone interview. "He said, 'Isn't it a shame what it has become. Some day I'll own it.' When he got really ill he stayed with us for four months. He was a very caring person, especially after 9/11. He touched a lot of hearts."

Some family members of those who died on Flight 93 became close to Mascherino.

"He will be most remembered by me for not only his dedication to the Heroes of Flight 93, but the love and care he had for the living family members of the Heroes," Calvin Wilson, brother-in-law of first officer LeRoy Homer, said in an email. "He came to know the Homers as if they were all born and raised in the Somerset/ Shanksville community. He will really be missed."

Dave Anderson of the Christian Motorcyclists Association of Monongahela has known Mascherino since 2006.

"He has been an inspiration in my life," he said in a telephone interview. "It has been an honor to serve at the chapel in every way we can. His drive for the mission of helping people, those who have lost loved ones, is unparalleled. I hope we can carry on the vision. Bishop Ramzi has assured me he will continue the vision. My heart aches knowing he won't see his completed vision for the chapel unless he sees it in spirit. I love the man."

Annie Snyder, director of the North Star Kids, who have come to sing at the chapel every year, said that she was drawn by Mascherino's way of speaking, his demeanor and his humility. The children can't wait to come each year. When they learned that Mascherino was critically ill, they would call him during their Thursday rehearsals to sing to him.

"He is a visionary, he is still planning and saying what he wants done," Snyder said before his death. "He can say the same thing 50 times and you'll still listen. Even now, he has told me what he wants the children to sing at his funeral. The kids, who range in age from 7 to 14, say the names of those on Flight 93 in a YouTube video and they are sobbing because they know them because of him."

Mascherino wanted the children to sing "Here I Am Lord" and "It is Well with My Soul" at his funeral.

Pat Morris, a retired flight attendant, is part of the team that raised money through the United Airlines flight attendants Cause Foundation for the Crew of Flight 93 monument at the chapel.

"For the last 11 years, he has done nothing but dedicate his life to the crew and passengers," she said. "It is his legacy. I don't know many people who are that dedicated."